Long Time No Blog

SO it's been roughly two months since my last post. That's in short due to the extremeness of uni life, the essays are brutal. The presentations are worse than bad and the friends I have made are fantastic!

These past eight weeks have left me emotionally and mentally bruised not to mention physically exhausted. My kids have been putting me on a guilt trip as is their right. Which hasn't helped AT. ALL. The good things that have come out of the past few weeks is that my money FINALLY came. Yay!! Just in time to spoil my sons out of utter guilt for having to leave them with a childminder and at nursery, even though they secretly loved it. And my time managemnet skills are off the charts.

I managed to get Sky+ installed a week or so ago, and it is the best babysitter on the planet. Some of you may shield your eyes and whine 'but what about your children's developmental habits, blah, blah, blah'. My short sweet answer to that is:

If you are a) single, b) have MY specific four old son living with you, and c) my workload to deal with,

you may well understand my need to plonk the littly in front of the box for an hour or two while I do essential things like cook, clean and write essays to put food in my fridgefreezer. For that is what the deal is here. I go to every lecture, attempt the reading even if most of it reads like chuffing Swedish!) and write the essays that my lecturers ask me to complete in return for my loans and grants. If I were tossing it off and sitting on my arse like I did on benefits last year (for the full benefit of gaining maximum financial help this year) I could not receive money for attending and doing nothing. It wouldn't feel right. although there are those students who do this. And do it well as I have observed. That's not me. I am learning and there to do just exactly that.

And as I only get 85% of childcare paid for me, I have to supply the remaining 15% and the kids are in childcare for 2.5 days a week, which is half the time I use a week to do uni work. I spend more than eight hours a day reading/writing/learning on a uni day, and about four hours on uni work at home.

Which explains why the ironing pile was scaled by a Japanese team with sleds and huskies last week, I gave them coffee and left them to it!
                
                               END OF RANT

Now it appears the time of year has come to make resolutions I have no intention of keeping,and resolutions I have every intention of keeping.

1. Pass this year at university.
2. Finish decoration of the house (been here 6 years and not finished lol)
3. Learn to drive
4. Lose weight, and stay that way
5. Start exercising
6. Spend QUALITY  time with kids, not QUANTITY time. 
7. Keep up on housework (this one will fall by the wayside in day three lol)
8. Watch a movie once a fortnight by myself
9. Treat the kids once a week to a movie/meal out/small toy
10. Treat myself once a week, whether it be new nail polish, a magazine, a driving lesson or a bath on my own with alcohol chocolate and bubbles.

Updates later on the resolution front.

Hope everyone hada great Christmas or December 25th and a great new year!!

Stolen Meme

Right, so I owe you guys a post, and the issue I'm dealing with right now is still way too fresh to have salt poured over it by me typing about it just yet. I will get to it but not today.

I have come across a blog today called Sunday Stealing, it rocks! They steal meme's from other bloggers who beg/borrow/steal from other bloggers and so on, and so forth. Here's one from ages ago. It was on Sunday Stealing, who borrowed (!) it from Carmen over at MomtotheScreamingMasses. Check them both out! Especially Carmen's archives, that woman is too funny!

1.What is a nickname a former lover gave you? Er, embarrassing moment here. Wench. It was wench alright. Not too sure why I was bequeathed that particular endearment. He had other names for me. Fluff, Baby, and later on, my personal fave - Jealous Evil Bitch. Which I was at the time. So I did my personal best to live up to the label.

2.How do you style your hair? Well, it depends what occasion I'm going to, how much time, whether I can be bothered, etc. I generally wear it blowdried and straightened with GHD's ( I puffy heart my straighteners), and then whack in a ponytail or a few slides. Then on special occasions, I might curl it with my straighteners, do a quiff, plait it, im currently trying to grow it long enough for a proper plait. The one thing I wish i could do on my own hair is a french plait. My sister does a mean french plait. I also never dye my hair. Ever. I have a colour that is hard to cover but noone else has my colour hair.

3.What's your least fave Christmas song? Rocking around the Christmas Tree. I can't stand forced jollity. My fave however is any of the original<<<< Chipmunks Christmas songs.

4.How many colours are you wearing right now? Er grey t shirt grey n pink socks, black thong, black bra and er, is denim a colour? lol

5. Are you an introvert or extrovert? I'd say both depending on time, place and how well i know the people i'm with.


6. What was the last book you read? Breaking Dawn, for the bajillionth time.

7. What's one piece of fiction that changed your life? The twilight saga. It made me realise that somewhere out there there is the perfect man (or vampire) for me, so I refuse to settle for any crap man beforehand.

8. If you are attracted to someone who is already in a relationship (or married), what might do you do? Suffer in silence.

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy recently? Yes, being single has made me unhappy in ways I can barely imagine. Yet, it was the best thing that could ever have happened. That's another story on it's own though, and the post I'm currently working on, but can't share just yet.

10. What's your favorite dessert? Anything with sugar and chocolate and you're onto a winner with me.


11. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Anything from five minutes to two hours depending on what I have planned that day, who I'm going to see, where I'm going , and my letdown - how many times I'd pressed snoooze when the alarm rang lol

12. Name one website that you visit daily. Why do you read it? there are a handful I visit daily, for various reasons. University email, in case I have anything that needs tending to,Student BlackBoard, for the same reason, Facebook, because I simply can't help myself, I'm an internet curtain-twitcher! MomtotheScreamingMasses, because a few years ago, I sat for three weeks and read her entire archive, and she made me feel so happy for her and so sad, I rooted for her for stuff that happened before I read it, she's ace, Better Now because i feel like we may be kindred spirits if we ever met, and my student loan company account, because they need to get off their collective arses and PAY  me already.

13. What was your last job before either you are at home or at another job?? I was at home before going to uni, and I was a health trainer before that.

14. Do you like to clean? I used to hate it, but I must be turning into my mother, I actually like it now that it doesnt take over my life. I never used to clean, so when I did it took ages and was totally soul-destroying. I turned my habits round after kicking my ex out two years and havent looked back, except to kick the door shut behind the useless idiot.

15. What was the last song to get stuck in your head? Gavin Degraw, the one tree hill theme song.

16. What's the last movie you saw? er twilight at the pictures, god i need to get out more, and funnily enough twilight at home too. What do you mean, do i have a problem?

17. Pirates or Ninjas? Pirates. Hello??? Johnny Depp??


18. What is your least favorite thing to do that you have to do everyday? Make decisions and deal with everything, money, tantrums, housework, cooking on my own.

19. Best time of your life? Right now, baby!

20. What are you most looking forward to in the coming year? Christmas, for the looks on my sons' faces Christmas morning, my cousins wedding, because its about damn time he got settled, Halloween, because a reader of mine is celebrating her birthday (shout out to K! I love you! U rock! xxx) and I'm dressing up as a cheerleader, a dead one.

A MEME

I borrowed this from momtothescreamingmasses. I shouldnt think she'll mind.

THE ABC’S OF ME


A – ADVOCATE FOR: Lie-ins once a week, and kfc delivery.

B – BEST FEATURE: My eyes, i like my arms and legs from the knee and elbow down lol. My feet are not un-pretty, and my boobs kick arse in a good bra.

C – COULD DO WITHOUT: Internet stalkers on Facebook, arguing kids, a kid who knows everything, he said so, er, stupid blog for uni. Housework!!

D – DREAMS & DESIRES: Healthy happy lives for me and my children and close friends and family. To own a car without going into debt for it. Find a man who’s worth it.

E – ESSENTIAL ITEMS: My bag, which contains my phone, my earphones for my phone, my keys, my lipgloss, my purse, my uni stuff, photos of my kids and usually chocolate and a bottle of the finest diet coke.

F – FAVORITE PAST TIME: Watching old tv reruns of anything from 1980 onwards. Spending time with my kids, just us indoors/outdoors. Reading good books. Eating good food.

G – GOOD AT: I’m a halfway decent writer (ive even been told i’m funny on my blog!), cooking without the pressure, sleeping, keeping levelheaded in a crisis.

H – HAVE NEVER TRIED: Ocean swimming, im scared of fish. Extreme sports.

I – IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS: Pay off debts, do my house up, take my close family on a fantastic holiday, buy a gorgeous car.

J – JUNKIE FOR: Chocolate. Cookies. Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food. Italian. Food and sugar in general.

K – KINDRED SPIRIT: Who knows? I identify most closely with Teri Hatcher or some other dizzy chick off the tv.

L – LITTLE KNOWN FACT: I have scars from two c sections.

M – MEMORABLE MOMENT: The birth of my kids. Leaving my ex. Getting into uni.

N – NEVER AGAIN WILL I: cut my hair short. Let a man hurt me.

O – OCCASIONAL INDULGENCE: I very rarely get a full day to myself, to just chill out, go to town, watch tv, have coffee with mates, without rushing round like a headless chicken to get to lectures, pick the kids up etc, that i love it when the opportunity presents itself, and do not feel guilty about it either.

P – PROFESSION: Mom, blogger, uni student.

Q – QUOTE: ‘To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else’. Emily Dickinson

R – REASON TO SMILE: I have the house to myself tonight, I like the quiet. I’m blogging. I have been given opportunities recently that I no longer thought possible, and my kids are happy healthy adjusted and sleeping at my mums house tonight.

S – SORRY ABOUT: Taking so long to realize when something is bad for me. Not being home now when kids want me there. Being a shitty cleaner. Not being able to stay on top of the laundry.

T -THINGS THAT ARE WORRYING YOU RIGHT NOW: Money. The reading and essays for uni. How to pay for Christmas. My house is half finished, but hey, ive only lived here six years in December!

U – UNINTERESTED IN: Sports, unless its womens gymnastics. Any kid programme. Chores. Folding laundry. Listening to the same story over and over and over again. People whining they are skint when they got back from a holiday abroad two days ago.

V – VERY SCARED OF: people dying and/or leaving. Fire. Flood. Natural disaster in general. Failing university.

W – WORST HABITS: I let housework pile up. I sometimes agree with my sons because Im busy with my own stuff, and didn’t know what i was agreeing to. Sorry lads. They may use this against me in later life.

X – X MARKS MY IDEAL VACATION SPOT: Anywhere with a bit of culture, on my own. Anywhere that’s clean safe and fun, with my sons. In that order.

Y – YUMMIEST DESSERT: Icecream. Or thorntons chocolate that don’t need to be shared.

Z – ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces.

WHAT ARE THE ABC’S OF YOU?

Fresher's: The Fayre That Gave Me a Broken Mirror and Free Condoms

So I haven't posted for a while, I 've been pretty busy. I have had to find new separate childcare arrangements for my kids after my previous childminder moved two villages away. That was fun. Not!

Then I enrolled upon and completed an Information Literacy course known as Smart Start 2009. It went through all the academic bits such as referencing the correct way for subjects, where to find credibe research source materials and learning the other bits and pieces required for a life at university. It was incredibly helpful, and I urge you to do the course if they run one near you before going to uni.

So Monday was induction day one and the fresher's fayre, which was nowhere near as much fun as I thought. Despite being accosted by strangely young members of the conservative party (who aren't getting capital letters in my blog) and strangely fun members of the ice hockey team, who thought I'd be fantastic on a pair of skates with a big stick in my hand.

I would be, but I don't fancy the bit where I get smashed to bits by other people lol.

So all I have to show for this week is a student card (where my skin looks oddly glowy and dewy and all the good-skin words) a broken compact mirror from some company or other, free cheap condoms. a handful of pants leaflets and an insult. The insult was 'That's mature', after they pressed a conservative party badge into my hand and I looked at it put it back on the table and (this may or may not have been a subconscious action), wiped my hand on my jeans. I don't care dude. Your beloved party effed up our country every.single.time you scrabble your way to power. Get away from me.

Here endeth the politics rant. But the first of many about uni.

Update on the money front None as yet but it's looking up touch wood *claps hands to own head*

I'm on my fifth cup of coffee and it's only noon!

As the headline reads, I'm hyper haha.

For the last three days I've dragged my ass out of a nice warm bed, away from extremely fun dreams to get up and get the lads ready for school and nursery. And, SHOCKER,  I only struggled the first day! Normally, I'm the furthest thing form a morning person you can get, needing coffee, morning tv, and silence from children, to evolve into a human. The whole pathetic process took about two hours.

But since Wednesday, I've all but sprang out of bed, into clean clothes, whack a bit of moisturiser and foundation on, and bounce downstairs. I must be a pod person. The kids get up okay with a bit of prodding, Dylan's not a morning person, Joe can be, depends on the planetary alignment and an assortment of other factors lol.

By seven twenty this morning, my hair was washed and brushed, I had clean clothes on, and washing on the line to dry. Sometimes I scare myself!

The only cloud on the horizon is the state of Student Finance England, who are (apparently) processing my application for financial support during my humanities degree. I actually got my shit together and applied in April, assuming mine would be on the proverbial top of the pile to process.

NOT SO!

I sent my documents in TWICE. They lost them on their fabulous all-singing, all-dancing system computer server. (Note to SFE: Get a new system, cos the one you got obviously can't cut it.) I fulfilled my end of the bargain, and because so many people applied for uni this year, they can't handle it. We all are on tenterhooks hoping and praying that loans get sorted before we starve to death, eaten by the dog we got for warmth because we can't afford the eletric and gas prices, which climb daily in this silly country.

I'm currently in the middle of applying for additional extra support from uni itself, and the application form states requests so many forms of documentation I'm wondering whether or not to include a pint of my own blood to sweeten the proposal.

To top this fantastic twist to the tale, my youngest son Joe, hugged me goodbye so hard this morning he pierced the back of my earring spike INTO my neck. Love hurts, hey? It sure did this morning.

Early Starts, Toast and Cries of I 'm Not Going To School, I Don't Feel Well

Today will be a busy one, not as busy as tomorrow morning, but today will definitely have it's moments.

Today is the last day of the school holidays for my childrens' school, which means that all day I will have the utmost fun of washing washing ironing and hanging up uniform. Cleaning shoes and locating PE kit, drying out trainers that I thankfully remembered to wash last night. I don't like the first days of anything. School, new job, new house, university. EEK!

I would much rather know what's expected of me, and from me, and my boys. I like a base routine to my day and new places and things to remember does not bode well for me. So I'm the irritating mum who says to other mums I see in the shop, 'What day do they start back?' and 'Which door is it for Year One?'

I know exactly what day Dylan starts back, but the week before panic sets in, and I convince myself I heard/read it wrong, and I'll look a total fool fetching Dylan back a day early or a day late, with the wrong uniform and the wrong essentials.

The first day of uni won't be as bad because if anyone looks a fool, it will be me, I'm used to looking like a total geek, with too much stationery and a massive bag of stuff I won't need. EVER. I have made a list of stuff I have to do before I start that is as long as the Labour Party manifesto (112 pages, I checked.) Politics is one of my modules. I've figured out I can log on to the student intranet, called Blackboard, over two weeks ago, and I've read through everything on my personal little part of it religiously.

You might have realised by now, I hate the unexpected, random, and unpredictable. I don't like surprises, and will only accept them from people I trust completely. I actually made myself ill in both pregnancies because I'd never experienced pregnancy before in the first instance, and because I'd never experienced birth in my second pregnancy. I badgered my poor consultant till I got what I wanted - which was a planned caesarean section.
    The first one was an emergency and I couldn't bear the thought of having Joseph naturally. So I didn't. The inpredictability of it all petrified me and made me an emotional wreck. This was all at a time in 2005 when the government and various other interfering officials were doing their level best to try and stop planned caesarean sections. 

Yes, I'm odd. Yes, I was too scared to push, not too posh! When I was pregnant with Joseph, I had all kinds of people attempting to talk me round to the idea of natural childbirth. I listened politely while clenching my teeth so as to hold the vomit back. For me, there's nothing natural about childbirth, and is, to me, one of the most terrifying and barbaric things women are expected to undertake.

Well, sorry about that. This post started in a totally different place than it went. After Dylan starts school, and Joseph, nursery, I have exactly seven days to pack my unibag no less than a million times and photocopy things I might need, but probably won't need. So total panic and the fear of all things new will reign in our house for roughly two weeks. Strangely, once I know what's happening, I'm totally fine. I get things done, and don't panic about anything, except the fact that Christmas is only 109 days away lol!

Go Me!!!

I'm so proud of myself. After living in my house for almost five years, I have finally started making it into a home.

My ex was content to live in a house like the one Jack built, ie, dropping to bits.
I've finished my dining room, apart from getting a few canvases or pictures and my Mum and I finished my sons' room today while they were at the seaside with my sister. So much for peace and quiet. This is the first time I've had a minute all day. It's heaven.

I have a coffee and a new KitKat chunky caramel (sorry to expats, the only thing id miss about britain is the chocolate goods), I don't mean to rub it in. But they are A-mazing. Not like caramel sauce, like a caramel fondant under the chunky chocolate. MMMM!

Ah, well. It's been housework and decorating all day today. My mum's great. She paints (cos, apparently I dawdle and she hates watching me dawdle) and I move furniture, make tea and sandwiches, and clean up. I'm just avoiding the ironing. It's the worst chore I have. The iron has a mind of its own and the only thing I've ever been able to de-crease right is kids t-shirts. Oh, and jeans.

My five year old told me the funniest thing about an hour ago, when my mum and sister departed. He gestured that I bend down to hear him better, and said proudly, I looked after Auntie Julie when we went on the ghost train. He felt so brave and had a big impressed smile on his face. It was pretty good for him because he is usually a bit of a drama queen, and is really sensitive. Both my sons are. They'll make great boyfriends and husbands one day, but they won't be the proverbial bad boy. They are too nice for that.

My friend's sister turned to us the other day and said of Dylan, He will break hearts one day that one.

I'm sort of on pause in life at the minute. Waiting for the older boy to start school (he will be in Year 1), thats new version of reception class or class 1 to you and me, I still work on the old system for most things lol. And Joe, my youngest starts morning nursery on the same day at the same time on opposite sides of the school. He starts 'big school' or reception class in January. I have roughly a week to myself then I start a course to build study skills for people starting degrees the week after. It's a three day course and highly recommended by a friend of mine. And then I get thrown in at the deep end of uni the week after.

AND STILL NO SIGN OF MY VARIOUS STUDENT LOANS! I have been awarded the same stop gap loan as everyone else as the company are so backed up with applications. I've sent the same set of documents in twice now. Who runs a company like this and gets away with it?!

I need these loans to appear and work out because shortly I will have to sign off the dole and be left with my kids money keeping me afloat while the 21st. I hate money. Well, it's not that i hate money, I hate the concept and culture of moeny. I should blog off I'm so cross with the student loans company I can barely think straight.

Question Time: How's life in your neck of the woods? Busy? Boring? Fun? Let me know x

Hi all,
         
I haven't been upto anything very interesting, therefore I haven't blogged since Saturday. I have tidied this house downstairs within an inch of it's life, and can't face doing the upstairs till tomorrow maybe. There are four rooms upstairs in my house and something needs doing in every room. The wallpaper is half stripped in my room, and the kids' room is half painted. The study is full of stuff and I just.can't.face.it.

So I'm on here avoiding it ;-)

Over the last few days, my friend and I took our kids to a shopping centre near us, Meadowhall. But, unfortunately, it has acquired the name Meadowhell, recently.  I don't suffer a fear of small spaces or crowds of people, and it's a good job, because the centre is always stuffed with people. My older son Dylan, is quite good at behaving while clothes shopping and Joseph the younger one isn't. Together, and with an extra child, who my kids have corrupted I'm sure, just don't mix well with clothes shopping. Never mind they are all back to school on the 8th. I can't wait. Joseph is at nursery five mornings a week, and starts fulltime school in January. Where's the time gone?  Since I kicked the ex out, it has FLOWN.

Another thing that's been annoying to deal with is the situation of when the kids visit their dad. Dad is the wrong word for how he's behaved toward his children recently. When the kids go to his mum's house, cause that's where he lives, they have twice come back covered in cat flea bites. But,apparently, it's been treated. Obviously, if it's treated, they would not be getting bit still, would they? So I have not taken them and they won't be going round again.His mum said to me, if I have a complaint about her home (and obviously, I have), then the kids aren't welcome. Great grandparenting, I must say.

It's fine for her and other relatives to stand up for their kids when they feel like they need to, but, when I do it?

I'm a bitch and a hypocrite. God. I'd love to swear on here but if I started I'd be unable to stop.

Well. I'm taking a stand. Clean up , or you and your son will never have the children at your abode ever again. Capisce?

Some people rile me.

LEEDS BABY!!!!

Well, Leeds was very cool. Let me list the bad things that happened to me.

• I got there WAY too early
• I didn't have nearly as much cash as I would need
• I got stood on, crushed, suffocated by someones hair, stamped on, bumped into, and elbowed in the face
• I was freezing because my coat wasn't up to the stupid english country
• I'm sure I must have contracted cholera from the very gross toilets
• My companion was either on the phone, weeing, eating, or drinking for eleven straight hours and drank thirteen pints over the course of one day (note to her: I am not your mother, look after your own self!)
• I sat in a patch of nettles
• Ultimately I went on the wrong day and missed Placebo, KoL, and Fall out Boy.
• I fell out with aforementioned cousin, and paid for our fifty quid taxi.

Then I wouldn't let her in my house (at half 11pm) and politely asked my mum who'd been watching my children to take cousin home. I couldn't stand to look at her.

The nice part of my day started when I came home and my mum had surprised me by cleaning my house top to bottom, and finishing a job I had started, my sister brought me gorgeous new dining chairs ,and my kids were absolute angels andslept through the night, not waking me till nine thirty am.

Where did the summer disappear to?

Well, the window debacle is finished as far as the council are concerned. But I'm not impressed. I've found a website that sells window safety fixtures and will be putting them on the windows myself. They only allow the windows to open so far.

When I went to the council to request, I was met with the information that, being as none of our household has a medical condition where they need locks on windows (WTF?!) we are not eligible. Basically, I said, one of my children has to fall out of the windowonto their head to get two window locks. The answer was, yes, but they obviously couldn't care less. Since the 60's, I read somewhere on the internet, that 120 children have died as result of falling out of unlocked or unrestricted windows. I'm not about to let my children join that number.

I'll be ordering the window restricters as soon as I'm able to afford them from

http://www.handlestore.com/

On another happier note, I'm going to Leeds Festival in the morning, so tonight will be spent tidying up, making loads of food for tomorrow, as I refuse to pay over the odds for hot food. My brilliant mum has taken my kids for me tonight and will sleep here tomorrow night.
I have never been before, and I just can't hold the excitement in anymore. YAY YAY YAY!!!!

My Head Hurts!

Today has been a stinker from around three pm onwards.

I literally have grown sick of the sound of my own voice. A friend of mine said to me earlier today that every mum has that awful banshee voice, the one we wish we didn't possess, but yet all do. I feel so angry, at myself, at my kids, at life in general. Oh, and not forgetting my local council.

So, the day started well, better than other days recently, Dylan and Joe let me arise and evolve into a human without too much whining and complaining. Score one for Mummy. I washed the dirty clothes, and then the dirty dishes in the sink without feeling too overworked haha. Then I dropped the boys at their nannan's house, while I caught the bus to town to attend a bank appointment.
             Natwest are fantastic by the way. Customer service at it's best

I called to my friend and childminder's new house on the way home, she'd asked me to pick up some ready-mixed filler for her and I wanted to drop it off. Literally, it weighed a ton. I asked if she needed more gloss painting doing, as that was 'my official job' because she finds it difficult to get down to the skirting boards. Upstairs still needed gloss paint on the skirtings and the woodwork, so I did that. I love glossing so fast and easy as long as you mind where the brush goes.

My friend and her little girl were coming to my house for an hour or two at half three, and I picked my kids up on the way home. We watched the kids play together, and all three kids had a good time. We all went up to the fish and chip shop for tea, which incidentally, is the best around here, and then went our separate ways. Me and mine went home and my friend and her daughter went to their own house.

Then the mayhem started. Dylan and Joseph ate their tea in random places for unknown reasons. With my kids, sometimes it's best just to leave them to their weird yet wonderful ways, as the answers they offer both stun and astound.

It was a while later that they showed me their latest discovery - they can now open their windows in their shared bedroom. My local council who own my house, have made recent renovations to it. We have had new double glazing, a new kitchen and bathroom, new boiler and central heating system, a new 'safe' fake flame fire and surround in our living room, and some rewiring. While I am extremely grateful that I received these updates to my home, and they were very much needed too, I cannot, for the life of me,understand why the window fitters insisted that ALL upstairs windows must have 'safety features'. Read 'they will not lock AT ALL'. Fine, fine, I understand that people lock their upstairs windows and immediately lose the keys. Okay. But must my children, who are too young to understand I don't want them opening any upstairs windows FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY also have safety feature windows, that coincidentally wouldn't be safe for them really. I would like locking windows in that particular room. I will cause havoc in my local council office until I get them too.

Tonight, I have had to shout, scream, wail, plead, cajole, barter, threaten and blackmail to:
            
   a) get my children to calm the hell down,
   b) stop opening said stupid windows,
and c) go to sleep safely with all windows closed.

I didn't feel safe leaving them in their room to go to sleep like I've done hundreds of times since the new glazing was installed, so I've left the housework and every other little thing i wanted or needed to do to simply sirt in their room with them until they went to sleep.

Which took a hell of a lot longer because I was there.

So tomorrow, I fully intend to go and request locking windows and sit there in the offices until Iget the answer I want. Sorry internets, rant completed.

I'm back (don't think anyone noticed I'd gone )

I’ve decided to restart my blog after much difficulty in recent life. The past two years have been very painful, and won’t be something I discuss here. But to cut a long story short, I am single. I am also a single parent. Scared yet?


When you offer this information to someone for the first time, most people force a smile while silently thanking all the gods they can think of that they aren’t in my position. There are millions maybe hundreds of millions of people in the same situation as I am, struggling, alone for the most part, putting on a brave smiley mask for all the world to see. I know what is under that brave mask, the thoughts that slide in under the can-do exterior.

‘I’ll look like a failure if I slip up, even once.’

‘I can’t ask for help because it makes people think I’m weak.’

I can hear the condescending tones in smug couples’ voices when they snuggle up on the sofa with a glass of wine in hand, ‘It’s only parenting, darling. How hard can it be? We manage just fine.’ Well, to all those smug couples out there, and you know who you are, I wish to say quite a few things, but unfortunately the majority of those things aren’t for decent folk’s ears. Some of the more printable things can be found throughout this blog. Let me kick off with just one.

‘Life is not predictable. It will throw whatever it likes at us, usually choosing the least opportune moment for us to duck away. It’s what we make of these ‘curveballs’ that will, ultimately, define us.’

Admittedly, these curveballs are easier to negotiate when you have a partner to lean on. They make the hard going feel like a shorter duration and worth the journey. When you’re a single parent trying to do it all alone, no one is by your side to comfort you on that journey.

In fact, my particular curveballs tend to smack me straight across the chops. I have to stand there and take it head on because I don’t have anyone to help deflect the blow. I mean, of course, I have fantastic friends and brilliant family I could go to. But it is not the same. Somehow, I actually feel guilty asking for help, because although I love the people around me, I know and understand they have their own lives to lead with their own curveballs to dodge.

Parenting is the single hardest job in today’s world, but when you have to do that job alone, it can seem like ten times the journey it would be if you had a partner to share the load. Being a parent, to two little boys in my case, is so difficult and so comical at times that it can be a situation where I either laugh or I’ll cry.

I’ve been single for two years. I became single and developed very bad depression, unfortunately, both of these curveballs were flung at me at the same time. The beautiful thing is I‘ve come through that dark spider web of depression and relationship breakdown, into the blinding glare of sunshine on the other side.

I really hate it when people say depression isn’t real, or that it’s ‘all in your head’. It is a very real, often debilitating illness. I’ve been there. And I’m here now, still alive, and some days are better than others. I now make a conscious effort to keep the darkness from creeping at the edges. And to anyone else out there in a similar position as I was, all I can say is I’m here for you.

Keep on going. There’s sunshine in life for all of us. The path there just has twists and turns for each of us.